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Local quadding enthusiasts are trying to raise the public profile of a popular destination west of Hinton.

Leigh Coelen plans to hold a cleanup of the Brule sand dunes on Saturday, May 26, and hopes to continue the initiative every month.

"We are trying to clean it up to keep the dunes open for our use," said Coelen.

Running alongside the Brule Lake portion of the Athabasca River, the Brule resident said that the long stretch of sand normally attracts about 50 ATV users each weekend over the spring and summer, although a long weekend can bring more than 100 visitors. Coelen hopes that a sustained cleanup effort will show other residents in the area that quadders respect having use of the Brule dunes.

"I know people get down there and they get drinking and throw their pop cans and beer cans on the beach," she admitted of some visitors to the site. "We bring garbage bags with us and pick up what we see."

As a third-generation resident in the Hamlet of Brule, Coelen grew up knowing the dunes as a long-established outdoor recreational destination. She has ridden quads at the site since she was little, and enjoys the continually eroding sand that makes tire marks disappear in days.

On the south side of Brule Lake, the sand dunes once served as the site of a station for the Grande Trunk Pacific Railway a century ago. The railway station has long since collapsed, with its remains now buried in sand except for a few power poles protruding from the dunes.

"The wind erosion is so bad that nothing could ever be developed there," remarked Coelen.

The cleanup of the Brule sand dunes begins this Saturday at 10 a.m. Information on the effort is regularly posted on the 'Brule Dunes' page on Facebook.